Sea Sounds (1963) 1'47"
An early example of music synthesized at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. "Sea Sounds" plays with the synthesis of noise by computer for musical purposes. Along with the noisy roar of the sea, Pierce gives some chirpy birds flying overhead. - ja

About "Sea Sounds" Pierce writes:

The rising and falling background of this piece is obtained by frequency modulating sinusoids with band-limited noise, a technique first used for non-musical purposes by James L. Flanagan. The three simultaneous frequency modulated sinusoids form major triads. The gradual rise and fall of amplitude was a new feature of Max Mathews' Music Program.

Stochatta (1959) 0'37"

A very short and sweet tune from the early experiments in computer synthesized music at Bell Laboraties in Murray Hill, New Jersey. According to Pierce its tunefulness and clear pitch centers are "intended as a contrast to Newman Guttman's 'Pitch Variations'", another early Bell Labs example which plays with pitch ambiguities. (see sunday night) - ja

John R. Pierce (1910-2002)